Even though he’s been to almost every Durand home game for 11 years, Jake Stockdale never cheers for the Bulldogs.

He has a more important job. Stockdale runs the clock.

“It’s kind of a fun job,” Stockdale said. “I like being around the kids. I know a lot of the parents. It’s just something that I do.”

The job seems fairly simple. Clock keepers sit at the scorer’s table and start and stop time at the officials’ command. They count baskets and fouls. They flip switches and push buttons. Easy stuff.

“It might seem easy to someone who has never done it before, but it’s harder than it looks,” Genoa-Kingston athletic director Jim Hughes said. “It’s a tough job. You have to stay focused on the game the whole time.”

Durand is like a lot of schools with one reliable person who volunteers to run the clock year after year. Stockdale started helping when his daughter played junior high basketball.

“I was going to watch her anyway, and the dads always do the clock and the score book and those things,” Stockdale said. “As the kids come through, they just pass it down to you, and I guess it was my turn. I had a couple of nieces who played after my daughter, and I just kind of stayed.

“Instead of a little job, it kind of became a life sentence.”

Some of the people who volunteer at the scorer’s table see it as a way to stay involved in the program.

“For me, I like to come back and watch the game, and this just keeps me involved in the program in a very small way,” said Adam Lowe, a former Christian Life player who now runs the clock for the Eagles. “Most of the time it’s pretty easy. It’s when you get under one minute in very close games that you get kind of nervous.”

For the most part, clock keepers are invisible. Nobody notices the guy in charge of the controls unless he messes up.

And mess-ups won’t go unnoticed. Fans and assistant coaches are quick to jump on the person behind the scorer’s table if the points go to the other team.

“The only time you’re really noticed is when you mess up and forget to snap the clock or something,” Stockdale said. “Everyone really screams and yells at you then. This one time, this guy was nagging me the whole night, and I handed it to him and said ‘Here, take it.’ ”

Athletic directors say that finding someone who’s trustworthy isn’t easy.

“It helps to know the game, and for the score book, you like to have someone with good math skills,” Christian Life athletic director Jeff Compton said. “Those are two key positions. And you have to have thick skin.”

Randy Sprayberry has kept the score at Jefferson for five different boys coaches. He’s a veteran at it now, but Sprayberry said it wasn’t easy when he started.

“It’s very easy to put something on the wrong side,” Sprayberry said. “Then you have people yelling at you, and you’re trying to fix it, but you have to keep paying attention because the game is still going on.

“And then there are a lot of small rules that even coaches forget.”

Unlike the officials on the court, the people running the clock and keeping the score book have no required training or knowledge.

Officials say it’s obviously a position that needs to be taken seriously, though. They can’t have a person running the clock who doesn’t know the rules, such as starting the clock on an inbounds play only when someone touches the ball.

“Yes, that can be the recipe for potential problems,” said 30-year official Pat Burke, who is involved with the Rockford Basketball Officials association. The RBO is planning on having a session for scorers and timers when its weekly meetings resume next fall.

But officials can’t teach scorekeepers one of the most important aspects of their job: staying impartial.

“We’ve tried different people, but they couldn’t keep their mouth shut, so we had to let them go,” Compton said.

After 11 years, Stockdale said he’s learned how to balance it.

“That part of it, I don’t have a problem with,” Stockdale said. “Of course I want our team to do well and to win. But it’s easy for me to stay impartial because I know I have to. I’m actually part of the crew, and if you’re cheering for your team and forget to stop the clock, that’s a real problem. You have to really get your brain into the game and forget who you are sometimes.”

Durand girls coach John Guth said he’s been in games where the score keepers have affected the outcomes of games.

“I almost lost a ballgame once because of the clock operator,” Guth said. “I always respect the operators, but we walked into one place one night and it wasn’t too pleasant.

“Finding someone to stay impartial who is also going to be dedicated to what they’re doing isn’t always easy to find.”

Like many of the behind-the-scenes people who are involved in high school sports, the clock operators have an important job, even if nobody notices them.

“I love it,” Sprayberry said. “I’ve learned a lot about the game just sitting here. And I love that I get to see the kids in a different light.”

Staff reporter Emily Tropp can be reached at 815-987-1385 or etropp@rrstar.com.